Big cable has beef with FCC, says broadband deployment is timely

Big cable is miffed at the FCC's conclusion that between 14 million and 24 …

Upset with the Federal Communications Commission about something? Get in line. Proposed net neutrality rules, the Comcast/NBCU merger, new spectrum auctions—everybody has something at the FCC they want to stop.

But what's interesting these days is that some of the loudest cries of pain are directed not at the agency's decisions, but at its reports, like those on the state of wireless competition or consumer "bill shock."

Ditto for the Commission's Sixth Broadband Deployment Report, which concluded that "broadband remains unavailable" to between 14 million and 24 million Americans and is not being delivered in a "reasonable and timely fashion."

Don't get the National Cable and Telecommunications Association started about this.

The law requiring this report (Section 706 of the Communications Act, if you're curious) was written "in the progressive tense—is broadband being deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion; not in the past tense—has broadband been deployed in a reasonable and timely fashion," their filing to the FCC complains.

"Congress thereby directed the Commission to take into account ongoing efforts by broadband service providers in making its determination, and not just to evaluate a snapshot of past or even current events."

Thus the agency's reliance on "18-month old data" to decide this question was a mistake. More recent intelligence on the progress of various countries in North and South Carolina would show great progress being made, NCTA says.

And apparently the trade association wants the FCC to start factoring the future into this survey.

There was no effort

For example, the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture "have almost completed the process of distributing $7 billion in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA)," NCTA notes. "Unless those agencies have failed in their mission, at least some of that funding will be directed to unserved areas of the country as Congress directed."

In fact, the deadline for awarding the balance of that money is September 30, and it will take years for those middle-mile and public computing center projects to be completed.

But it seems that NCTA wants them put in the statistical bank already. "There was no effort to determine whether any of the areas identified in the Sixth 706 Report as unserved have been selected to receive ARRA funding," from the government, the trade association argues.

This was all particularly unfair, NCTA contends, because for the purposes of the report the FCC upgraded its definition of broadband from 768Kbps downstream to the "aspirational" speed of 4Mbps. That's the National Broadband Plan's benchmark goal for everyone.

"While the Commission’s stated intent and definition of broadband properly considered future developments, it then relied on 18-month old data to determine whether those admittedly forward-looking objectives had already been achieved. Given this fundamental mismatch, it is wholly unsurprising that its answer was no."

Actually, the FCC report says the agency also came up with that standard based on current demand. 4Mbps is the "minimum speed required to stream a high-quality—even if not high-definition—video while leaving sufficient bandwidth for basic web browsing and e-mail, a common mode of broadband usage today," the document noted.

In any event, the NCTA wants the Commission to reconsider its findings.

"Although it is true that broadband has not yet been deployed to all Americans," the trade association says, "this fact alone does not demonstrate that deployment is not occurring in a reasonable and timely fashion."

Matthew Lasar / Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz.